TECHNOLOGY

By JOHN SCHWARTZ

Published: January 22, 2004

The music industry returned to the courthouse yesterday to sue 532 people it accuses of large-scale copyright infringement.

''Our campaign against illegal file sharers is not missing a beat,'' said Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America. ''The message to illegal file sharers should be as clear as ever.''

Although the accusations are made against hundreds of defendants, who might live anywhere in the United States, the industry actually filed only four lawsuits yesterday, three in New York courts and one in Washington, D.C., because courts there are close to Internet service providers.

The suits, involving the largest group of defendants to date, represent the third round against suspected file sharers since the industry began its litigation campaign last summer. But these are the first suits after a federal appeals court ruled against the industry's use of special copyright subpoenas to force Internet service providers to disclose the names of music traders.

The new lawsuits are classed as ''John Doe'' lawsuits, which have become more common in the Internet era because they allow plaintiffs to sue people whose identities are not known. These suits identify the suspected file traders only by a numerical tag, known as an Internet protocol number, assigned to them by their Internet service provider. According to the industry, the people sued had, on average, posted about 800 music files for sharing.

In the previous round of suits, the industry used a streamlined process under federal copyright law to demand the names of copyright violators from Internet companies by filling out a simple form with a court clerk instead of seeking those names through traditional subpoenas that must be authorized by a judge. But in December, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit declared that this expedited process did not apply to the file sharing networks used by music traders. Music industry officials said then that they would change their tactics to conform to the ruling, but that they would not change their overall strategy of suing music sharers to enforce copyrights.

Jonathan Zittrain, co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, said the new round of lawsuits shows ''the record industry making good on its promise not to let up.''

The industry will now ask the courts to issue subpoenas to the Internet access companies to reveal their subscribers' names based on the Internet protocol numbers. Once the subscriber's name is known, the original complaint will be amended to include the subscriber's name, or in some circumstances the cases will be refiled or moved to other courts.

Industry lawyers said that they would offer defendants the chance to settle cases before amending the suit under the defendant's name.

Sarah Deutsch, vice president and associate general counsel for Verizon Communications, said that her company would comply with any subpoena issued by a court. The recording industry association sued Verizon in 2002 to force compliance with a special copyright subpoena demanding the identity of a subscriber. Verizon, in turn, argued that the industry should file John Doe suits instead of using the copyright subpoena shortcut.

But the new wave of suits, Ms. Deutsch said, might raise other issues. ''Although in theory the John Doe lawsuit is more protective of consumers' interests, in this case a lot depends on whether the R.I.A.A. will push the envelope of what's permitted'' under the process, she said. ''If that doesn't seem kosher to a judge, they may well have a problem,'' she said.

Consolidating hundreds of subpoena requests into a handful of lawsuits has caused some legal experts to wonder if the courts are ready to deal with the challenge.

''The court system will have to decide how big an administrative burden it is willing to suffer to allow the industry to get these names and go after people,'' Mr. Zittrain said.

Cindy Cohn, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has fought the industry's attempts to unmask suspected file traders through streamlined subpoenas, said, ''This is a better process, in the wrong direction.''

While getting court-ordered subpoenas is more likely to protect individual privacy and due process, she said that the recording industry was nonetheless pursuing a doomed strategy in trying to punish potential customers. Her group argues that record companies would do better to create a system of set fees in exchange for broad access to music, like those used in broadcasting. ''They should be offering consumers the right to share files in exchange for fair payment, like they offer radio stations,'' Ms. Cohn said.

Although the lawsuits have generated a harsh response and some bad publicity, industry officials said that their tough approach had been successful. By some measures, file trading has dropped, at least in the United States, while awareness that trading music violates the law ''has shot through the roof,'' said Mitch Bainwol, the chief executive of the industry group.

At the same time, new online music services like the iTunes Music Store of Apple Computer and Rhapsody from RealNetworks have grown, and music sales over all rose in the months after the industry filed its suits last year. CD sales for all 2003 were down 2 percent from the year before, a smaller drop than had been expected before the litigation began.

Mr. Sherman said that whether or not file-trading activity could be quashed, the industry would measure its progress ''by the success of legitimate services -- and by that measure, we are delighted,'' he said.

Photo: Mitch Bainwol, chief executive of the recording industry association, at a Senate hearing in September, with stacks of CD's to make a point. (pg. C8)